People's Party of Spain

The People's Party (PP) is a liberal-conservative and Christian democratic political party in Spain, founded on 20 January 1989. The party was founded by former Falange member Manuel Fraga Iribarne, and it merged the People's Alliance of Spain with smaller liberal and Christian democratic parties to form a competitive center-right political party. The party's own Jose Maria Aznar, Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004, oversaw a housing bubble that led to 2008's Great Recession, the ceasefire and legal harassment of the ETA, the ending of compulsory military service, the entry of Spain into the Iraq War, and the protection of agriculture and fishery rights. From 2004 to 2011, the party sat in opposition to the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government, but it won 44.62% of the vote in the 2011 general elections to regain a majority of seats in the Congress of Deputies.